Bombay HC Bars Media Reporting, Public Disclosure of POSH Judgments Without Permission
New Delhi: The Bombay high court on September 24, Friday passed an order barring the media from reporting on judgments under the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) without the court's permission.
The court further directed that such orders should not be uploaded on the high court website either, and failure to abide by these conditions will be a contempt of court.
"Both sides and all parties and advocates, as also witnesses, are forbidden from disclosing the contents of any order, judgment or filing to the media or publishing any such material in any mode or fashion by any means, including social media, without specific leave of the court," the court order said.
A bench of Justice Gautam Patel passed the order while hearing a case under POSH Act.
Since there appears to be no established guidelines so far in such matters, these guidelines are the "minimum requirement" to protect the identities of the parties from disclosure, even accidental disclosure, in these proceedings, Justice Patel said in the order.
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The guidelines issued in the court order stated:
The names of the parties will not be mentioned and to be read "A vs B", "P vs D" etc.
The parties will not be referred to by their names but only as Plaintiff, Defendant No.1 etc.
The order should not mention any personal information such as email ids, mobile or telephone numbers, addresses etc. No witness’s names will be mentioned, nor will their addresses be noted.
All orders and judgments will be delivered in private, that is to say, not pronounced in open court but only in chambers or in-camera.
Any form of recording of any part of the proceedings is strictly forbidden.
In terms of public access of the judgments, the high court said that "if any order is to be released into the public domain, it will require a specific order of the court. This will be on the condition that only the fully anonymised version of the judgment is let into the public domain for publication."
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